Overview

Many improvements have been made to DB2® DataPropagator for iSeries,
V8.1 to further expand upon the success of DB2 DataPropagator for
AS/400®, V7.1. Improvements in usability, performance, and
serviceability as well as new functions are briefly described here. For
a more detailed description about these improvements and new functions,
refer to the
Description
section.

Usability Improvements

New user interface:
A new powerful GUI tool, the Replication Center, is the centerpiece of
DB2 DataPropagator for iSeries, V8.1.

Greater control over what is captured for each registration:
The V8.1 Capture program start option GENCDROW is now a choice when
defining registrations.

Greater control over recapturing data from replicas:
When you register a source table, you can specify if you want changes
recaptured.

Reorganizing of Change Data (CD) tables and Unit of Work (UoW) table upon
controlled-end of Capture:
You can now request that the Unit of Work table and the CD tables be
reorganized when you end Capture.

Performance Improvements

Fewer joins between replication tables:
For user-copy target tables, the Apply program no longer requires a join
of the CD table and the UoW table in most cases before it applies these
changes to the target tables. The Capture pruning code also stops doing
a join of the CD table and the UoW table in most cases.

The
Replication Center
replaces the Data Joiner Replication Administration (DJRA) tool and the
Control Center and it has the look and feel of the other DB2 V8.1
centers. It also has a launch pad that organizes the basic functions
needed to set up a DB2 replication environment. Replication Center runs
on Windows NT® platforms, and does not require a local DB2 database.
It is packaged with the Control Center in the DB2 Connect Personal
Edition box, and is invoked from a separate directory. A single-user
license of DB2 Connect Personal Edition is shipped with DB2
DataPropagator for iSeries, V8.1 program.

The Replication Center is used to:

Define tables as sources, called replication sources

Define views and joins views as replication sources

Define target table definitions, called replication subscriptions

Remove replication sources or subscriptions no longer needed

Whenever you perform an administration task using the Replication Center,
such as defining a replication source, the processing information is
generated as SQL statements. You can choose to run the statements
immediately, or you can save the SQL statements to a plain ASCII file and
run the statements at a later time. Deferred SQL files let you customize
the replication tasks for your shop or application and give you
flexibility as to when and how you run the SQL files.

If you prefer to use the native commands to set up and maintain your
environment (such as the Add DataPropagator Registration (ADDDPRREG)
command), or to operate the programs (such as the Start DataPropagator
Apply (STRDPRAPY) command), they are still available.

The
Capture
component captures changes made to data in tables defined as
replication sources by reading the journal  asynchronously and without
any changes to business applications. The captured changes are placed in
staging tables. DB2 DataPropagator Capture for the iSeries supports the
Remote Journal function. It uses a multiprocess approach. Users can
start multiple jobs to process a large number of transactions. Capture
for AS/400 also does registration management and pruning in yet another
process, freeing the transaction processing jobs from these secondary
tasks.

The
Apply
component reads the changed data, previously captured and stored in
staging tables, and applies it to the target tables. Apply components
can also read data directly from source tables, for example, for a full
refresh. Supporting update and refresh copying provides greater
flexibility and automation in a replication environment. The Apply
component also enhances the data to your specifications as it copies data
to the targets. You can exploit the full power of SQL to:

Create new columns

Summarize data

Translate data

Join data

You can define run-time processing statements using SQL statements and
stored procedures before and after the Apply program processes the
replication subscription. The run-time processing statements can be run
at the source server before the answer set is retrieved, and at the
target server before and after the answer set is applied. The stored
procedures use the SQL CALL statement, newly supported by IBM
Replication, without parameters. The run-time procedures are executed
together in a single unit-of-work. Acceptable SQLSTATEs can be defined
for each processing statement as well.

DataPropagator for iSeries also supports replication of large objects
(LOBs) and replication of Datalink data types.

What's New in Replication for iSeries

The DB2 DataPropagator for iSeries, V8.1 program had a major overhaul in
its architecture with the purpose of providing the following
improvements:

Usability Improvements

New user interface:
Now you can set up and maintain your replication environment, and operate
the Capture and Apply programs, by using a much improved Graphic User
Interface  the new Replication Center. It replaces the DJRA and the
Control Center and it has the look and feel of the other DB2 centers. It
also has a launch pad that organizes the basic functions needed to set up
a DB2 replication environment. However, if you prefer to use the native
commands to set up and maintain your environment (such as the Add
DataPropagator Registration (ADDDPRREG) command), or to operate the
programs (such as the Start DataPropagator Apply (STRDPRAPY) command),
they are still available.

Greater control over what is captured for each registration:
When you register a table to capture only selected source table columns,
you can now specify whether you want the Capture program to always
produce a CD row or only when the registered columns change. In earlier
versions, you could control what was captured for all registered tables
only, not for individual registrations.

Greater control over recapturing data from replicas:
When you register a source table, you can specify if you want changes
recaptured from some tables but not others. By default, changes are not
recaptured from replica tables and forwarded to other replica tables, and
changes to master tables in update-anywhere replication are recaptured
and sent to replica tables.

Reorganizing of CD tables and UoW table upon controlled-end of Capture:
When Capture pruning deletes unneeded UoW and CD rows, the disk space
used by these deleted rows are not recovered automatically. A new
keyword, RGZCTLTBL, is added to the End DataPropagator Capture
(ENDDPRCAP) command to specify that the UoW table and all the active CD
tables are reorganized to recover the space occupied by the deleted rows.
This is only allowed during the controlled end. It takes longer to end
capture if reorganize is requested. This is a significant usability
improvement (previously you had to issue Reorganize Physical File Member
(PGZPFM) commands to recover the disk space).

Performance Improvements

Fewer joins between replication tables:
In V8.1, the Apply program does not need to join the CD and UoW table to
populate user-copy target tables under most circumstances. This
time-consuming join can now be avoided due to a significant change in the
Capture design. V8.1 Capture holds all the CD rows in memory until it
processes the application's commit request. If the application does a
rollback, the CD rows held in memory are discarded. In other words, the
Capture program now writes only the committed transactions into the CD
tables. Notice that if the Capture program cannot hold all the data for
a transaction in memory, it resorts to the use of spill files. Also the
CD and UoW tables do not have to be joined for pruning under most
circumstances.

Capture makes optimal memory allocation decisions:
To avoid inefficient memory usage and the ensuing use of spill files if
memory limits are about to be exceeded, Capture keeps a history about the
way applications update a source table. This history information allows
Capture to make optimal decisions in its memory allocation algorithm and
to minimize its use of spill files.

Fewer updates for subscription sets with multiple members:
Compared to previous versions of DataPropagator, the V8.1 Apply program
makes fewer updates to control tables for subscription sets with multiple
members. The improvement is particularly noticeable where the Apply
program runs frequently and has sets with a larger number of members.

Apply program optimizes processing if it has only one subscription set:
In V8.1, you can start the Apply program so that it will cache and reuse
information about a single subscription set. Using the new parameter
(OPTSNGSET) when starting the Apply program improves CPU utilization and
throughput rates.

New Functions

Allowing multiple sets of Capture control tables:
In earlier versions, a user could create only one set of Capture control
tables in the ASN library. In V8.1, you can create additional sets of
Capture control tables. One reason to use an additional set of Capture
control tables is to have multiple Capture environments in a single
system. For example, the accounting department can have one Capture
environment and the marketing department can have its own, both
environments run independently of each other.

Automated monitoring:
The new Replication Alert Monitor runs continuously and monitors the
Capture and Apply programs for you. You define thresholds for criteria
that you want to monitor, and specify people who should be contacted
automatically via e-mail when those thresholds are met or exceeded. You
can use the Replication Center to configure and operate the Replication
Alert Monitor.

On-demand monitoring:
You can query the status of the Capture, Apply, and Monitor programs
using the Replication Center.

Long table names and column names:
DataPropagator now supports source table and target table names up to 128
characters, and column names up to 30 characters.

More frequent commits by the Apply program:
In many situations, if you have user-copy, point-in-time, or replica
target tables in a subscription set, you can specify that you want the
Apply program to commit its work after it processes a specified number of
transactions. To do so, you must run the Apply program in transaction
mode.

Referential integrity for more types of target tables:
In many situations, you can have referential integrity on user-copy and
point-in-time target tables by starting the Apply program so that it
commits its work in transaction mode.

New option for replicating changes to target-key columns:
In V7.1, you could ensure that changes to key columns were replicated
properly to your target tables by registering your source table to
capture updates as delete/insert pairs. This option works fine except
that more CD rows are generated as a result. In V8.1, you have a new
option to address this problem. When you define a subscription set
member, you can specify whether the Apply program should use the
before-image values or the after-image values when it builds the WHERE
clause using the primary-key columns in its predicates. The use of the
before-image value allows you to avoid the conversion of an update to an
insert. If you choose to use this option instead, your registration
should specify the before-image columns as well.

New signals to control the Capture program:
The Capture program is now controlled by signals written to the signal
table (IBMSNAP_SIGNAL). The signal table provides a way to communicate
with the Capture program through a trigger on the signal table. Capture
uses the signals to determine when to start capturing changes for a
particular table (the CAPSTART signal), when to terminate (the STOP
signal), and whether it must perform update-anywhere replication (the
UPDANY signal).

More ways to set operational parameters for the Capture program:
You can use the shipped defaults to operate the Capture program or you
can create new defaults using the Change DataPropagator Capture Attribute
(CHGDPRCAPA) command. You can also supply new operational parameters for
the Capture program on the Start DataPropagator Capture (STRDPRCAP)
command that are different from the default. When the Capture program is
running, you can change the operational parameters by using the Override
DataPropagator Capture Attribute (OVRDPRCAPA) command. The effect of
this command lasts until you end the session or until you issue another
OVRDPRCAPA command.

Rule enforcement:
The source tables for the members of the same target set must use the
same journal (this rule was not enforced in earlier versions). You will
not be allowed to add a new member to an existing set if the source table
of that member does not use the same journal as all the source tables of
the other existing members.

Migration utility:
The V8.1 product provides a replication migration utility to allow you to
migrate from earlier versions of DataPropagator (supported versions are
5769-DP3 and 5769-DP2). It also provides fall-back support as long as
you never start either V8.1 Capture or Apply.

Serviceability Improvements

New trace facility for Apply program:
The new replication trace facility is supported on the Apply program.
You can start or stop the trace facility without stopping the Apply
program. Also the trace output is compact, which usually results in
smaller trace files.

Replication Analyzer program improved:
The Replication Analyzer program was designed to gather the contents of
the Replication control tables and to flag set-up errors or
inconsistencies in the entire network of systems involved in data
replication. It produces an HTML file to be viewed by you or to be sent
to IBM service for review. It has usability improvements, and it has
also been enhanced to analyze the new V8.1 features. It is primarily a
service tool, but you can also use it to validate your replication
environment, particularly if you use ISQL to update your replication
control tables or if you edit the scripts generated by the Replication
Center. The documentation of this new Analyzer is available on the Web.

Product Positioning

DataPropagator captures data changes against a source database
automatically and propagates the changes to any target database.

DB2 DataPropagator can help:

Improve data availability and operational database performance

IBM DB2 DataPropagator replicates data between your central database and
regional transactional databases, making business data available to the
regional databases for prompt transaction processing. The powerful data
subsetting capability of DB2 DataPropagator supports join predicates or
subselects, allowing you to distribute data efficiently from normalized
databases. For example, you can join a customer table with a sales table
and replicate the sales data to a branch office based on the address
field of the customer table.

Leverage your data assets for decision making

DB2 DataPropagator enables sophisticated data transformation, maximizing
the value of your data warehouse and business intelligence systems. You
can perform all the following tasks:

Derive data using arithmetic, Boolean or any valid SQL expression

Aggregate data to produce sums or averages using SQL column functions

Convert data by translating encoded fields to descriptive fields

Consolidate data through joins or unions

Maximize the value of your data with sophisticated transformation

Conduct trend analysis by generating histories

Perform complex data transformations with stored procedures

Process user-specified SQL statements or stored procedures, before or
after updating the targets

In addition, you can utilize various types of target tables to meet your
application needs:

User copy  to access data in the source table

Point-in-time  to access data in the source table, plus the time stamp
for the transaction that added the data

Replicate  to replicate changes in the target table back to the source
table

Build powerful, distributed applications

To be competitive in this information age, your geographically dispersed
enterprise must be well connected with its business partners, customers,
and mobile employees. As a new breed of distributed applications emerges
to enable global connectivity, DB2 DataPropagator can help you mesh these
applications into a unified system. DB2 DataPropagator helps you
maintain the integrity of your primary database and its many distributed
replicas with the new update-anywhere replication capability. This
capability enables rigorous conflict detection and automatic compensation
for offending transactions.

Go mobile

DB2 DataPropagator supports the unique needs of mobile users and
occasionally connected systems. To accommodate the infrequent,
unpredictable, and expensive connections from these systems, DB2
DataPropagator enables on-demand replication. On-demand replication
automates connection and disconnection, which minimizes connection time.
It also allows mobile units to initiate transfer of all data, whether
they are downloading data from a central server or uploading it for
consolidated processing.

Manage the data flow in your enterprise

The new user-friendly Replication Center (included as part of the DB2 UDB
Control Center) provides an easy interface to define replication
scenarios (including data sources; targets; frequency and timing of
replication events; pre-change and post-change processing). This enables
centralized and consistent database management. The replication monitor
reports on systems participating in the replication, monitoring the
activities of the Capture and the Apply components as well as the status
of the replication subscriptions. To minimize the impact on transaction
performance, DB2 DataPropagator utilizes intelligent techniques such as
log-based change capture. To minimize the impact on production systems
and network usage, DB2 DataPropagator:

DB2 DataPropagator establishes the base architecture for the IBM
replication solution. The IBM replication architecture is based on
individual components that interoperate, letting you customize your data
replication environment. These modular components give you flexibility
to tailor the replication environment to your needs. The component
products are:

DB2 DataPropagator  provides refresh and update propagation among the
DB2 family of databases. Refresh replaces the entire contents of a copy
from the source; Update transfers only the changes that occurred since
the last copy.

IMS DataPropagator for z/OS  provides update propagation on
MVS systems from IMS to DB2 and supports coexistence between IMS and
DB2 with bidirectional propagation.

DataRefresher  provides refresh support from a wide variety of MVS
and VM sources to the DB2 family.

The Publications Notification System (PNS) is available by order
number/product number. Customers currently subscribing to PNS will
receive automatically notifications by e-mail. Customers who want to
subscribe, can visit the PNS Web site location at:

The Publications Center is a worldwide central repository for IBM product
publications and marketing material with a catalog of 70,000 items.
Extensive search facilities are provided, as well as payment options via
credit card. Furthermore, a large number of publications are available
online in various file formats, which can currently be downloaded free of
charge.

Note that PNS subscribers most often order their publications via the
Publication Center.

Displayable Softcopy Publications:
The IBM DB2 Universal Database Replication Guide and Reference, V8
English publication is available as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file and is
included with the program media.

Technical Information

Hardware Requirements

Hard disk storage requirements depend on transaction volume and also on
whether Journaling is being used.

Software Requirements

iSeries V5R2.

For use of the Replication Center, Windows® or AIX® is also required.

Planning Information

A Try and Buy copy of the DB2® DataPropagator for iSeries, V8.1
program is included with iSeries V5R2 program as a keyed stamped media
for new or upgrading customers of AS/400® or iSeries. Such customers
will have a 70-day period for trying and evaluating the program. The
clock starts on the first use of the program. If it is decided to buy, a
key will be provided to remove the time restriction.

Installability:
Customers with a valid software subscription can upgrade free of
charge from the previous version  DB2 Propagator for AS/400, V7.1
(5769-DP3).

Direct Customer Support:
Direct customer support is provided by IBM Operational Support
Services  Support Line. This fee service enhances customers'
productivity by providing voice and electronic access into the IBM
support organization. IBM Operational Support Services  Support Line
will help answer questions pertaining to usage, and suspected software
defects for eligible products.

Installation and technical support is provided by Global Services. For
more information, call 800-IBM-4YOU (426-4968).

Packaging:
The DB2 DataPropagator for iSeries, V8.1 program is delivered with
Capture and Apply as part of the program package.

The DB2 DataPropagator for the iSeries program also includes a
single-user license of the DB2 Connect® Personal Edition program, which
contains the DB2 Universal Database Control Center (with Replication
Center) software.

The packaging also includes license documentation including the IPLA
agreement, the
License Information
booklet about the product, and the associated use entitlements.

Security, Auditability, and Control

DB2 DataPropagator for iSeries, V8.1 uses the security and auditability
features of the iSeries V5R2 operating system.

The customer is responsible for evaluation, selection, and implementation
of security features, administrative procedures, and appropriate controls
in application systems and communication facilities.

Ordering Information

Terms and Conditions

Licensing:
IBM International Program License Agreement. Proofs of Entitlement
are required for all authorized use.

Limited Warranty Applies:
Yes

Program Services:
Available until September 30, 2004.

Money-Back Guarantee:
If for any reason you are dissatisfied with the program, return it
within 30 days from the invoice date, to the party (either IBM or its
reseller) from whom you acquired it, for a refund. This applies only to
your first acquisition of the program.

Copy and Use on Home/Portable Computer:
No

Volume Orders (IVO):
Yes, contact your IBM representative.

Passport Advantage Applies:
No

Software Maintenance Applies:
No

For Operating System software, the revised IBM Operational Support
Services  Support Line offering will provide support for those
operating systems and associated products that are not available with the
newly announced Software Maintenance offering. This will ensure total
support coverage for your enterprise needs, including IBM and selected
non-IBM products. For complete lists of products supported under both
the current and revised Support Line offering, refer to our Web site at:

Prices

The prices provided in this announcement are suggested retail prices for
the U.S. only and are provided for your information only. Dealer prices
may vary, and prices may also vary by country. Prices are subject to
change without notice. For additional information and current prices,
contact your local IBM representative.

Customer Financing:
IBM Global Financing offers attractive financing to credit-qualified
commercial and government customers and Business Partners to assist them
in acquiring IT solutions. Offerings, rates, terms, and availability can
vary by country. Contact your local IBM Global Financing organization or
visit the Web at: